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De Seversky began his military life at a young age. After serving in the Imperial Russian Navy, he received high honors and was the ace in the Navy after engaging in over 57 aerial combats. After coming to the United States, he created the Seversky Aircraft company before being forced out of the presidency of his own company in 1939.

Seversky published Victory Through Air Power in 1942, and explained his theories of aviation and long-range bombing as influenced by General Billy Mitchell. Seversky argued that:

"The rapid expansion of the range and striking power of military aviation makes it certain that the United States will be as exposed to destruction from the air, within a predictable period, as are the British Isles today;"

Those who deny this possibility are exhibiting something like a "Maginot line mentality";

The U.S. must begin preparing immediately for "an interhemispheric war direct across oceans;"

The U.S. must become the dominant air-power nation, "even as England in its prime was the dominant sea-power nation of the world."

1942: "It is though a bow-and-arrow army, having been routed by gunpowder, sought to win back lost ground by throwing in yet more bows and arrows." (page 338)

(Seversky's criticism of the post-Pearl Harbor plan to use US airpower in the Pacific only to "assist surface operations" instead of for strategic bombing.)

1959: "The President said he thought we were talking about bows and arrows at a time of gunpowder when we spoke of bombers [like the B-70] in the missile age."[1]

Appearing less than six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the United States' entry into World War II, the book was extremely popular, influential, and controversial. Seversky advocated the formation of an independent air force, the development of long-range bombers (meaning an intercontinental range of 3,000 miles or more) and a commitment to strategic use of air power (as opposed to its then-traditional use as cover or support for ground-based operations). His plans implicitly involved diversion of resources away from current war operations.